Thankfully she was found

by Mike

Whenever a major news story breaks during a week you can be guaranteed that the rumours will start to fly in the tabloids on the following Sunday. This week is no different.

The news that 9 year old Shannon Matthews has been found alive and well (we assume) is obviously fantastic news. The resulting speculation as to whether all of this was planned as a hoax should make even the most sceptical of us sick. Unfortunately in the media driven, fame craving days that we live in; anything is possible.

I hope it’s not the case, I hope that it can all be simply put down to a mistake made by a girl who is not old enough to know better and trusted in the wrong person and luckily managed to survive. Others in situations such as these as not so lucky and the majority of the cases are not as well documented.

Mick Donovan has already been labelled an “oddball”, so in most circles that automatically makes him guilty, we do tend to judge more before we know the full facts. I think it is easier to do so because we are fed on sound bytes, be it the news, sport, entertainment and the majority of other things in life.

I have no idea what Mr Donovan’s state of mind is, nor do I really want to. I thought it was interesting that Shannon Matthews Uncle stated , on television, that he may have given the police the tip off in the investigation and added that if the reward for information was given to him, he would give it to charity.

The thing I found interesting about that was that this wasn’t an interview that was leading to the question of a reward. It was more to do with gaining a family reaction of the news that Shannon was safe.

At the end of it all, we will never really know what all concerned have gone through. We all look at this from the outside and because we can try and draw on our own experiences, or what we would just deem as the right way to go about things, we have a belief that our way is the right way.

For the print, radio and television media it is a news story and one that has concluded with a happy ending.

If only, all stories such as this one could turn out like that.

Sunday, March 16th, 2008 and is filed under Pain and suffering, Views on News.